11 Exercises You Should Never Do

Now that you're building a healthy body with a steady gym routine, do yourself a favor: Don't waste time with ineffective or downright dangerous moves. We'll tell you which exercises to skip — and the ones to do instead.

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Skip: Seated hip abductor machine

You think you're working the outer thighs in hopes of blasting away those saddlebags. Unfortunately, the bad news here is twofold: When you're seated in this position, the abductor muscles of the outer thighs aren't actually doing the work. Instead, the piriformis muscle, a small deep hip muscle, is. And when this guy is worked too hard, it can get angry and pick on its neighbor, the sciatic nerve, possibly leading to painful sciatica.

Besides, you can't blast away fat on a specific body part — better known as spot reduction — by working just those particular muscles anyway. "This machine totally ingrains that myth," says Irene Lewis-McCormick, MS, CSCS, a personal trainer in Iowa. The only way to reduce trouble spots is by changing your diet and doing total-body exercises that peel away pounds from your entire frame.

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Try: Side-lying leg raises

While you can't slim your thighs by target training, it's still important to strengthen the abductors because they're essential to help keep you stable on your feet. Lie on your side, propping yourself up on your forearm. With shoulders and hips stacked, raise your top leg 3 to 12 inches, but don't kick it so high that your leg starts to turn out — this will activate different muscles. Hold for 5 seconds, then lower, and repeat for 10 reps. Flip over and do the other side. "Body weight is fantastic for toning muscles, if you can leverage yourself," says McCormick.

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Skip: Crunches

If your aim is to strengthen your core, listen up: You never again have to do an abdominal crunch. "This motion puts you in spinal flexion, and reinforces the bad slouching posture that people fight against all day when sitting in a chair," says McCormick. Furthermore, it emphasizes the incorrect notion of spot reduction. Remember, no amount of crunches will blast away belly fat. Focus on firming your body from head to toe.

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Try: Planks

"The key to a strong core is to focus on extension of the rectus abdominus [otherwise known as the 'six-pack' muscle]," says McCormick. Prop yourself up into a plank with your hips and shoulders at the same level — on forearms or full hand — and hold for 10 seconds. Take a 5-second break, and then repeat. "After 30 seconds of this, most people are cooked," says McCormick. "Going for 5 or 6 rounds is really hard."

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Skip: Upright rows

The aim of this exercise, in which you hold dumbbells, a barbell, or resistance band in both hands and draw them up your body's midline toward the chin, is to work your shoulder muscles. The problem is, you may end up overworking them. "This movement has the potential to compress the nerves in the shoulder area, impinging the shoulder," says Sarah Machacek, NASM-CPT, a Virginia-based personal trainer with two decades of experience. In short, it's a prescription for a rotator cuff injury.

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Try: Straight-arm raises

This one targets the deltoids (rounded parts of the shoulders) while keeping the shoulder safer from impingement. Stand with arms down in front of you, hands holding dumbbells. "Use a lightweight dumbbell and progress gradually," says Machacek. With control, raise arms up, hands in a neutral grip, straight in front of you to shoulder level (but no higher), then slowly lower down. Repeat 10 times. Mastering proper form is critical before increasing the weight, she adds.

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Skip: Behind-the-neck lat pull-downs

"Any exercise that brings your spine out of alignment under load is potentially dangerous, and particularly when it's the neck, which is the most fragile section of the spinal column," says Andre Crayton, a personal trainer in Indiana with more than 20 years of experience. "By their very nature, behind-the-neck lat pull-downs require the user to thrust her head and neck forward and break spinal alignment, which can result in a muscle strain, pull, tear, or, even worse, a spinal disk herniation."

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Try: To-the-sternum lat pull-downs

The key to giving your largest back muscles, the latissimus dorsi, a workout, is maintaining good form, while keeping your neck and spine safe. First, stand beneath the bar with your arms forming the shape of football goal posts, then shoot your hands straight up to grasp the bar; this gets your arms the appropriate distance apart. Sit down on the seat with straight arms, bringing the bar with you. Keep your posture upright — don't lean back — and think about raising your sternum toward the bar (rather than the bar to your sternum) while you pull down.

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Skip: Seated leg extensions

This popular machine targets the quadricep muscles at the front of the thighs. However, using this equipment puts your knees in a very compromising position. "Lifting heavy weights in this manner, with all the resistance focused at your ankles, is not what the knee was designed to do," says Machacek. "If you have any kind of knee problem, or use too much resistance during this exercise, you can easily cause injury."

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Try: Split squats

This move is a safer bet because it places the knees in a more natural position. Start from a lunge position, with one leg stepped forward, so that each knee can be bent to about a 90-degree angle; the front knee stays behind the toes. With your torso upright, slowly raise and lower your body, pressing your body weight primarily through the front leg (the rear one should act more as a kickstand to keep you from falling). Elevating the rear leg as shown intensifies the focus on that front quad. Repeat 10 times; then switch sides.

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Skip: Dumbbell-loaded side bends

Here's another exercise in which what you're actually doing and what you think you're doing don't align. "Not only does it not work your ab muscles, this move places high levels of compression forces on the spine and the soft tissues that act as the spine's shock absorbers," says Michelle Olson, PhD, FACSM, CSCS, a personal trainer and professor of exercise science at Auburn University at Montgomery in Alabama. "It puts you at risk for rupturing a spinal disc."

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Try: Side planks

This simple move isometrically targets the oblique (side abdominal) muscles while keeping the spine in a healthy alignment. Lie on your side, forearm flat on the ground and perpendicular to the shoulders. Stack the feet and bend the knees slightly to bring the feet in, then press up, using the slight leverage from the bent knees to press your shoulder so it's directly over your elbow. Press the top hip up toward the ceiling so it's parallel to the top shoulder. Hold for 10 seconds, then rest for 5, and repeat three times; switch sides and repeat.

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Skip: Back extensions, especially with added weight

While extension is generally a good thing when it comes to strengthening the core, hyperextension is another story. And with this apparatus, that lower-back overarching (as shown here) is all too possible. "If you have a natural exaggerated curve and extra abdominal fat, you're risking injury of the lower back," says McCormick says. Adding a weight plate ups the danger in the same way, throwing off your balance.

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Try: Bosu "swimming"

Train the posterior core muscles with this supportive yet challenging exercise. Place yourself facedown atop a Bosu ball. Extend arms and legs straight out so your body is balanced on the ball. Then "swim" by raising the right arm and left leg; switch sides. Repeat at a controlled, moderate pace for 30 seconds.

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Skip: Double-leg raises

There are a number of ways this move, in which you suspend your body and bring the knees or straight legs up toward the chest, can be performed. Most often, it's done hanging from a bar — but it's not the core strengthener you think it is. "Most people overuse their hip flexors in this movement and let their hips fly up with their legs, instead of using their core muscles to keep their hips stable," says Kendra Fitzgerald, ACE-CPT, a personal trainer and yoga instructor in New York City. "This can lead to spasms in the hip flexors from overuse, and even herniated disks, as the weight of the legs creates undue pressure in the vertebrae and the spine flexes and bends with weight."

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Try: Bird dogs

This yoga exercise increases core strength without overworking the hip flexors. Get down on all fours, with shoulders lined up over wrists and hips over knees. Extend your left arm and right leg, then bring the two limbs slowly together under the body so elbow and knee touch. Do 10 rounds. Then repeat with your right arm and left leg.

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Skip: Tricep dips

Strengthening and toning the back of the arms is something every woman wants, especially since Michelle Obama exercised her right to bare arms. Though, this move, in which you're raising and lowering your body by the strength of your upper body, isn't the best way to accomplish it. "The shoulder is one of the most mobile, yet least stable, joints in the body," says Fitzgerald. "Adding weight — and full body weight at that! — to the joint as you're dipping is an anterior shoulder injury waiting to happen."

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Try: Cable tricep extensions

Outfit a cable machine with a bar handle or double-handled rope, and adjust the pulley above your head. Grasp the handle with both hands shoulder-width apart, then pull down to align your forearms parallel to the ground and your elbows locked into your sides (the machine should be at tension). Press down with your hands and straighten your arms down to your sides; slowly raise arms back up to parallel. Do 10 reps. Bonus: When you're in a standing position, you're also engaging your core muscles to keep your torso upright.

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Skip: Elliptical machine

"Have you ever tried actually walking, er, traveling in a way that is similar to the elliptical machine movement pattern? No? I didn't think so," says Crayton. "And there's a good reason why — it's not exactly natural." The best exercises set you up to be stronger and more efficient in your movements in real life. "Sure, the elliptical burns calories, and it can improve your heart health. But it will not actually improve your fitness level for anything other than using the elliptical machine," he explains. The only reason to use this equipment, Crayton says, is if you're injured and physically cannot walk, run, or climb stairs.

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Try: Stair mill

This machine provides a great aerobic workout that also trains you for a very common everyday activity: climbing stairs. Pick a pace you can comfortably sustain, and start stepping. Use the handles for balance if you must (it's best not to hold on at all); if you find you're grasping the handles for dear life, slow down, or end the session and aim to go a few minutes longer on your next workout.

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Skip: Standing chest fly

The action of opening and closing your arms in front of you works your chest, right? Wrong, if you do this one from a standing position. "Gravity is the enemy here," says McCormick. "You think you're working your chest, but because the weights are pulling down on your arms, you're really just stressing the shoulders' rotator cuffs."

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Try: Supine chest fly

Here's an easy fix: Lie down. Grab a pair of dumbbells, and slightly bend your arms, with weights positioned high above your chest. Slowly open your arms out to the sides, keeping the elbows bent and allowing the upper arms to come down until they're parallel with the floor. Then, slowing raise your arms back up to the starting position, as if you're hugging a large tree. Do 10 reps.

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